Numbers 7:89

Summary

The verse describes Moses entering the Tent of Meeting to speak with the divine presence, and hearing a voice speaking to him from above the kapporet ("atonement cover") that rests on the ark of the testimony, between the two cherubim. The narrative closes by repeating that "he spoke to him."

Key words

• Vo' ("went", H0935) — qal infinitive construct, governed by the preposition be- ("when/in"), forming a temporal clause: "when Moses went/entered."
• middaber ("speaking", H1696) — hithpael participle of the root for "to speak." Unlike the piel forms used elsewhere in the verse (daber, way'daber), this one carries the hithpael (reflexive/reciprocal) pattern, though functioning here to describe the voice heard by Moses.
• kapporet ("atonement cover", H3727) — feminine singular noun naming the object atop the ark from which the voice originates.
• 'edut ("testimony", H5715) — feminine singular noun in construct with 'aron ("ark of", H0727), identifying the ark by its contents.
• way'daber ("he spoke", H1696) — piel narrative (vayyiqtol) form, closing the verse and echoing the earlier infinitive daber ("to speak") from the opening clause.

What the text says

The sentence is built as a temporal frame: the initial clause u-ve-vo Mosheh 'el-'ohel mo'ed le-daber ito ("and when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with him") sets the scene using two infinitive constructs of the same root — bo' ("to go") and daber ("to speak", piel) — before the main narrative verb vayyishma' ("and he heard", H8085) introduces the action. The object of hearing is ha-qol ("the voice", H6963), further specified by the participle middaber ("speaking"). The location is layered through prepositional phrases: "from above the kapporet," "which was on the ark of the testimony," "from between the two cherubim" — each phrase narrowing the source of the voice spatially.

Throughout the verse, the one Moses speaks with and hears is referred to only by pronominal suffixes (ito, "with him"; elav, "to him") rather than by an explicit name — the referent is implicit from context rather than stated grammatically in this verse. The final clause vay'daber elav ("and he spoke to him") uses the ordinary piel narrative form, contrasting with the hithpael participle middaber used earlier for the same act of speaking.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint adds the explicit noun κυρίου ("of the Lord") to the phrase "he heard the voice," where the Hebrew simply has ha-qol ("the voice") without a named referent. The Vulgate does not add a name either, matching the Hebrew's pronominal reference ("vocem loquentis ad se"), but it inserts the interpretive phrase "ut consuleret oraculum" ("that he might consult the oracle"), which has no corresponding element in the Hebrew wordlist. Both the LXX (λαλοῦντος) and Vulgate (loquentis) render the hithpael participle middaber with an ordinary active participle, not distinguishing it from the piel forms used elsewhere in the verse.